Well, it’s been an interesting couple of months since I last posted. We’ve been keeping busy with a couple of contracts from the Home Office. One is, of course, on digital evidence standards – but the other was a little bit different.

We were lucky enough to be awarded the contract to produce the entomology standard for the forensic science regulator. Since this isn’t part of our usual skillset, we did have to bring in a couple of the UK’s leading forensic entomologists to help with it. Fortunately, our network of contacts is big enough that we found them quickly enough and had the pleasure of working with both the Natural History Museum and Met. Police as a result.

Aside from technical content, the new standard isn’t that different to the others that the regulator already has in place. Most of the new material is designed to help interpret the “master” standard (ISO/IEC 17025) for applications relating to creepy-crawlies without specifying exactly how to do anything (this is a commonly misunderstood aspect of this whole regulatory system – the supplier and the customer are supposed to agree what will be done and how. In the whole, the regulators and assessors just want to see evidence that such an agreement has been reached and that things have been done that way).

Anyway, we delivered ahead of schedule and on budget. Something which some people seem to consider unusual for government contracts. But then, when you’re dealing with quality systems, can you afford not to hit the targets ?

For more information about standards development, regulation or uses of forensic science, please contact us via http://www.n-gate.net/